Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra

(Public Theater, November 1982) Charlie Haden brought his band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, to NYC for two concerts at the Public Theater in November. This is a large group that was originally formed twelve years ago when they recorded an excellent album on the Impulse label which won a few awards in Europe and subsequently went out of print. The band has been reformed, its leader said, because the times demand it.
   The Liberation Music Orchestra's music, arranged mainly by its keyboard player Carla Bley, is derived from Spanish sources (songs of the Spanish Civil War, folk melodies of El Salvador and Chile). In the blending of the ensemble's brass, especially, it brings the local anthems of the villagers headed off to fight the oppressors and the mourning yet spirit-affirming funeral dirge sounds of their coming home in caskets, right to the plush seats on Lafayette Street.
   The whole night's program had the Spanish cries and charges of continuing resolve. There were no speeches and you didn't need to know the titles of the pieces. The sad but forward tones, brass harmonies, and comrade ensemble work went beyond jargon. Oppression and control deal with message. Music like this affirms and celebrates the malleability of souls.
   What seemed staid was the necessity of politeness and courtesy among the formal-forced crowd (crystal chandeliers in the lobby) and this seemed to muffle or contain the musicians who were dealing to a great degree with the tightness of the charts to begin with. But the sound system was excellent and it was a pleasure to hear jazz music without the usual accompanying cigarette residue in the air.
   Charlie Haden's own bass solos didn't seem as connected as he most often sounds (particularly on his "Song for Che" from Ornette Coleman's Crisis LP, which he surprisingly didn't play this concert; there's an earlier version on the original Liberation Music Orchestra LP, also). A Haden solo emphasizes the lyric to an almost storytelling quality, sections leading into each other like a narrative, taking unexpected but glad to follow turns. Friday's concert didn't provide that fluidity. Too often he'd play straight eighth notes instead of dotted and I missed the tension and sailing quality those emotional dots give. But there's plenty of diversity in his playing and it wasn't long before he'd be doing something you'd never even thought of hearing or thought could sound so beautiful, solo or accompanying.
   The other outstanding solos that night were taken by Dewey Redman, Don Cherry, and Mick Goodrick. Redman's tenor, especially, arose like a fire during an extended solo in which he both rode the ensemble's firm textures and took off into outer space with sidewalks for us. Don Cherry's pocket trumpet explorations were unique in the tone of the instrument itself but more, distinctive in his brisk punctuations, glissando runs, and collage statements, which, when he'd end a solo by sitting back down, would leave us in the air where we belong. Mick Goodrick emphasized the Spanish flavor of the night with his tasty flamenco guitar work. His solos were less a display of dazzling technique than what marvelous sounds can result from it. His fast paced picking would take unexpected journeys into different keys that would shock but a second later delight.
   The arrangements had little surprise but the sounds they merged the band into were often as plush as the velvet we were seated in. I didn't like the world I was in when the lights went up.

(Poetry Project Newsletter, January 1983)